


Endgame

by Lexie



Category: Hellboy (movie-verse)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-25
Updated: 2009-01-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 12:37:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexie/pseuds/Lexie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between the two movies, Hellboy and Liz give chess a shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Endgame

> _Endgame:_ The stage of the game when there are few pieces left on the board. The endgame follows the middlegame.

Perched on the coffee table beside a small pile of white chess pieces, Liz Sherman stares at the chess board in disbelief. "Wait--"

"Nope," Hellboy says, grinning broadly and plucking the black king off the board. "I win, fair and square."

She's still stuck on the checkmate, brows knitted. "How did you--" Liz shuts her mouth and turns a suddenly accusing look on him. "You've played before."

He laughs, leaning back in the armchair. "Was wonderin' how long it was gonna take you to figure it out."

"_Red_!" Outraged, Liz flicks a pawn at him; he easily deflects it with his stone hand and it rolls under a bookshelf, where one of the cats immediately starts trying to retrieve it with a darting paw. "You're a cheater!"

"What?" Hellboy defends. "I didn't cheat!"

"Yeah, yeah." She rolls her eyes tolerantly. "You just creatively told the truth."

"I never said I didn't know how to play," Red reminds her, still grinning.

Liz has been sitting on the table with her arms wrapped around her knees for a while; she uncurls to stand up. "You let me _teach_ you," she grumbles, picking up her old beer bottle and the empty bag of chips (and pointedly not touching his four empty Tecate cans), but Red only guffaws again, clearly pleased with himself. "Where did you learn to play like that?" Liz asks, finding a bag under the table to drop the empties into. "Obviously not from _me_."

She glances up again just in time to see that huge smile dim. "Pop taught me," Hellboy says, rubbing the back of his neck. "Pretty much before I could talk."

The set of Liz's mouth softens. She sets the bag down beside the abandoned chess board with a soft _clink_ of glass on wood, and she comes around the table. "Well," she says, quiet and warm, and she turns his chin upward (with one finger and her thumb), and his eyes flick up to hers, "he taught you very well." She kisses his cheek lightly and leans back again. "--Does Abe know you play?"

"_No_," Red says firmly, "and he's not _gonna_ know. He'd want me to play all the damn time."

"You're going to have to buy my silence," Liz informs him, serious, and she puts a knee on either side of his hips and rests her weight there.

He drapes his right arm around her waist, stone hand careful as always and his smile returning; he tugs her more securely into his lap. "Oh yeah?"

"Yep." She wraps her arms around his neck even as his tail coils loosely around her knee. Slow and teasing: "But I'm pretty sure I promised to make it worth your while if you helped me practice my chess game. So. Maybe we can work out a deal."

"I like deals," Red says, and he's grinning as she angles in and kisses him. It's a thorough kiss, slow, and still makes her heart beat faster, three months after the memorable first one; he raises his left hand and brushes her cheek before gently tucking her hair behind her ear. Liz half-smiles against his lips; shifts and lets him pull her closer, wrap her up in those big arms and kiss her like she's the most important thing in his world (and she is, and it's a thought that is swiftly growing less terrifying than it once was).

They spent the first month together doing nothing _but_ make out.

Consequently, they're _very_ good at kissing.

"No deal," Red rumbles when their lips finally break.

Liz lets her forehead rest against his, just below the stubs of his horns. Their faces are too close for her to look him in the eyes, but she tries anyway, one side of her mouth curved upward in confused bemusement. "No deal?"

"Don't need one." He cups the side of her face in his hand and strokes her cheekbone with his thumb, and Liz thinks that something so innocent probably shouldn't start the wave of palpable heat that rolls through her, but it does. _Don't need one because you're so beautiful_, says the gesture; _don't need one because I love you_; _because I still can't believe you're with me_; _because I want you so bad_. Liz knows Red well enough by now to read what he means.

"Okay," she murmurs, her eyes bright, and she touches that strong jaw. "Okay," and she fits her mouth to his again.

* * *

  
Abe glances at the ceiling as the distant thuds continue; like heavy metal knocking against a wall. Slightly irritating, he muses, but not unusual; doubtless, there are agents attempting to subdue a new creature of some sort in the corridor above this one.

Putting the thought out of his mind for the time being, he lays a hand on the crank that opens the vault door.

Surging, overlapping and coming on all at once -- laughter, a dull clank as Liz's shoulders struck the opposite side of the door (and an immediate apology that was swallowed in kisses); hitched groans and low noises, overwhelming hunger sharp even through hazy heat; a split-second's impression of a tangle of limbs (red and white) and blue-white flames moving together in the bed, one long shuddering breath --

Abe yanks his hand back with enough force that he staggers backward several steps, blinking rapidly.

"Abe?" calls a voice; one of the agents, wheeling a cart of nachos and chili down the hall. "You okay?"

"I -- wouldn't go in there, just now," Abe says, recovering enough to lift both hands.

The man in the dark suit squints at him. "What, are you crazy? You know how Red gets when his dinner's late."

"I wouldn't," Abe repeats, slower, "open that door, Agent Morse." Over his shoulder as he swiftly retreats toward the library: "You might want to leave the cart." His gills are fluttering in startled distress.

Morse stares after him.

He leaves the cart.


End file.
